Haunted
by StelenaEpicBeauty
Summary: Following a devastating tragedy, a broken Brooke Davis returns to New York City and meets up with the one man she told herself she would never be stupid enough to fall in love with ... Dylan McKay. A OTH/BH 90210 crossover.


**Haunted**

Another Brooke/Dylan fic. This one will be about 5 chapters. Feedback is love.

**Chapter 1**

_One day they were planning a wedding and the next she was burying him._ How dumb, how idiotic!, of him to play hero when he was supposed to be _her_ hero. She couldn't really blame him for taking a bullet meant for Quinn but Quinn had Clay and Brooke... she had no one now. Her whole world had fallen out from under her feet the moment she felt Julian's fingers go limp in hers. She was spiraling faster and faster downwards in a black abyss and eventually she had to hit bottom and it wasn't going to be pretty.

XoXoXo

She wanted to get away. That much she had decided. Where she would go, she didn't know. Maybe back to New York. She still had a branch of Clothes Over Bros out there, one even Victoria hadn't managed to damage. She could go there and try to start over. If that didn't work, at least she would be away from the memories of Julian on literally every fucking street corner and crevice of the podunk town called Tree Hill.

Haley urged her to stay - said she needed people who loved her surrounding her at a time like this. All Brooke could say was she needed Julian and he wasn't here. He was just gone. Forever.

XoXoXo

She had been back in New York for just two weeks and was trying her best to keep it together. Keeping it together meant working fifteen hour days and driving all of her employees to do the same. Three quit that first week when they grew tired of her "tyrannical" ways. By the end of the second week, another three were gone. If she kept going at this rate, she would have no employees by the end of the month. And she didn't care. She really didn't. Without Julian, her business, her career, her very life didn't mean anything. It didn't matter; she didn't matter. She felt like nothing. She was the lonely girl all over again, sitting on the steps outside in the dark waiting for someone to show up and claim her. But they never did.

XoXoXo

Just as she had expected, another five employees quit by the end of the following week. She was turning into her viperous mother and while that should freak her the hell out, she didn't care anymore. Ironically, she could now see Victoria's point of view in a way. It was better to keep people at two arms' length so they could never get too close. Brooke got that now. She should have never let Julian get inside of her heart and make her love him because it hurt too much to know that he was really, truly gone.

She got at least five phone calls a day from people back in Tree Hill calling to check on her or in her mom's case, to chew her out for letting the store go to pot. But why shouldn't Brooke? Her life was hell; her store should appropriately be as well. Victoria of course said she needed to stop wallowing in self-pity already and Brooke told her more than once to go to hell. The old Brooke maybe could have rebounded from this but the one who had loved and lost everything was not getting over this anytime soon.

Still she couldn't just hole up in her office night and day. She knew that. If she didn't get some sleep soon, she was going to collapse. But sleep ... that's when the dreams came. The ones that were so damn good. Julian was alive in them and they were married and Brooke was expecting a miracle baby. And then she'd wake up in a cold sweat and realize it was all a dream and her actual life was the nightmare. So she'd stay awake a little longer if she could. She'd try anyway.

Still tonight the office was too small, too cloying. She looked at the clock. It was nearing midnight. She should go home. Even if it was just to veg out with a glass of wine. Or two. Or three.

She grabbed her Clothes Over Bros original hand bag and started out the door. She walked purposefully down the street; head held high and determined that no one would see her pain. If anyone tried to approach her anyway, she would give them one hell of an ass kicking. She was just that angry. Angry at the life she had been cheated out of.

She had to pass a club on the way to her Mercedes and the sounds of music and party-hearty, happy people made her sick to her stomach. She started to hurry ahead when she heard a voice call her name. A voice she had never expected to hear again. Not in this lifetime anyway.

"Brooke Davis," he said.

She considered ignoring him but she instinctively turned around. It was definitely him and as usual he looked stoned, either of his arms wrapped around the shoulders of two very young, very buxom blonde twins.

She rolled her eyes. "Dylan McKay, well I'll be ..." She said, truly surprised he had even recognized her.

"Brooke, looking good," he said.

"Put your tongue back in your mouth, old man," she said.

"Hey who are you calling old?" He snapped. The twins looked at him sideways. "I'm not that old."

"Girls, he's too old for you," she said snidely. "Like Grandpa-old. He's pushing forty-five here."

The two blondies looked panicked and then pushed his arms away and took off down the street together. Dylan glared at her. "I am not forty fucking five ... Damn you, Davis."

"I'm already damned," Brooke said. "Welcome to the fucking club, McKay."


End file.
